Monday, April 30, 2018

Stalled and unsure about what to do next?

Poppy.1 6"x 6" on cradled canvas $100

Have you felt this way? Sure you have and that's where I am right now. I'm stalled on a painting, this time an acrylic canvas that was going great guns until life interfered, resulting in a week away from the easel. Now I'm unsure about what to do next.

The story is a familiar one to most artists. I had a painting that simply wasn't ever going to make the grade so I began again by covering the whole thing with gesso except for the sky area which had potential. I grabbed an idea... red poppies... and took off running with brush and paint in hand, remembering a workshop with Jennifer Bowman where she demonstrated painting poppies modeled on dozens of varieties which grow in her backyard. My other poppy painting, In Flanders Field, has brought me great joy and I wanted to do another.

I began by shaping some individual poppies on small cradled canvases. Those four turned out very well and onward I went.

Poppy.2 6" x 6" $100

This new iteration was well on its way when I was interrupted. Each day as I pass my easel I think about painting, working through ideas and hoping I can make time tomorrow or the next day, and that I'll know what to do.

Poppy.3 6" x 6" $100

Poppy.4 6" x 6" $100

Just Do It

Nike has the solution... Just Do It, proclaimed on millions of tee shirts. Just begin.

When you're stalled or uncertain... just begin. Just Do It.

Pick up the brush. Dip it into the paint. Make a mark. Step back and look at what you've done. Repeat, repeat, repeat. There's something in the doing that propels one through the creative process.

I'm Building a Gallery

Head over to DailyPaintWorks and sign up for daily emails. That's where I post my work along with hundreds of other artists. Click on any image that interests you for more details. To get to my gallery click on the DPW link below.

Art Tip: Removing acrylic from hands

Use ordinary hand sanitizer to quickly remove acrylic paint and medium from your hands. The alcohol in the sanitizer dissolves the acrylic. Wipe well with a paper towel and then wash with soap and water.

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.